County Lines Drug Trafficking

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that the child should be central, and I will take away what he said today. I hope I can reassure him that the new offence we are introducing tomorrow of criminal exploitation of children will mean that there is another mechanism to hold to account those criminals who seek to use vulnerable children to undertake their criminal activity. When that comes to this House, I hope it has widespread support.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, the Minister has mentioned this already, but can he outline what progress the Government have made towards fulfilling their manifesto commitment to recruit additional neighbourhood police and community support officers? Does he agree that tackling this type of drug trafficking requires not just tougher enforcement but ensuring sufficient police numbers on the ground?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I will help the noble Lord, I hope, by saying that the Government announced £1.1 billion more this financial year than the police budget was in the last financial year, and this financial year is under a Labour Government while the last financial year was under a Conservative one. When I was the Police Minister in 2009-10, we had the highest number of police officers ever. We faced 20,000 police officers being cut between 2010 and 2015-16, and only latterly have they been built up again. I hope the noble Lord will work with us to ensure that the £1.1 billion of extra spending is put to good use. He can certainly monitor the delivery of the 13,000 officers, which will be a real improvement on the ground to help tackle county lines and other neighbourhood policing issues. That is a 6.6% cash increase and a 4.1% real-terms increase in funding, and I hope this House welcomes it.

Domestic Abusers: Reoffending

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

As I mentioned in my original answer, the Government have put £20.5 million into perpetrator intervention programmes currently, and those are under evaluation as we speak. The evaluations are slow by their very nature and, again, I can only answer for post 4 July 2024. What we are trying to do is examine, with the violence against women and girls strategy, what works effectively and what interventions we can take forward. Therefore, both the points that the noble Baroness made and other considerations of intervention—and how we evaluate that intervention to make sure it has a real impact and give comfort to victims primarily—are important issues. We will be examining that during the development of the violence against women and girls strategy.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, everyone’s thoughts will be with those who have been victims of domestic abuse, and supporting such victims is rightly of paramount importance. Given that the Government have released domestic abusers early as part of their efforts to manage prison capacity, can the Minister explain what assessment has been made of the risk that this policy poses to victims?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

I hope the noble Lord will know that offences have been excluded from the SDS40 early release scheme. Those include sex offences, irrespective of sentence length; serious violent offenders with a sentence of four years of more; and specific offences linked to domestic violence, irrespective of sentence length, including stalking, coercive controlling behaviour and non-fatal strangulation. So the noble Lord’s basic premise is, I am afraid to say to the House, wrong. Domestic violence perpetrators are not being included in the programme he referred to.

Emergency Service Network Programme

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes an extremely valid point. There are 44 police forces in total—43 plus the British Transport Police—and they have a range of different technological methods of gathering information and working. Obviously, from a taxpayer efficiency and a security point of view, we want to make sure that we get the best deal. Part of the Government’s efficiency drive will be to look at how we can work with police forces, which are independent, to do that downstream. The change we have made from the previous Government’s position will save the taxpayer £200 million per year when up and running. That is a more efficient way of getting a better service for the taxpayer.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

His Majesty’s Opposition look forward to monitoring this programme according to the timescale set out today. What assurances can the Government give that the emergency service network will ever deliver what it set out to do, especially in light of the ongoing vast expenditure of the programme?

[Lord Hanson of Flint (Lab)]

Let me give the noble Lord this assurance: I am not sure how we will monitor it, but it will be better than the previous Government’s monitoring. The previous Government’s overspend and the delays—as mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe—were all, dare I say it, on his watch. We signed a contract in December and it is a significant amount of taxpayers’ money—potentially £19.2 billion over a 28 year-period. The Home Office, with colleagues, will monitor the introduction, delivery and efficiency. As we do so, and as we have done with the previous contract that his Government signed, if it becomes inefficient, we will take action. We are now in discussions with Airwave and Motorola to find recompense for the taxpayer for the overspend that was inflicted on his watch.

Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Bill

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 5th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, I suspect that the answer to quite a lot of the points that have been made lies in the term “reasonably practicable”, which is seen throughout the Bill. I asked some questions about that on the previous day of Committee, in particular whether reasonably practicable was limited to physical considerations or included financial ones and was a mix. Fair enough, my amendment was about the meaning of “immediate vicinity” and that is what the Minister answered, but I do not think he answered that question. If he is able to do so today, I think it might help us quite a lot. The financial implications are specifically referred to in Amendment 22.

I first heard the term “invacuation” about 20 years ago and I heard it from the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Haringey. I am very doubtful about Amendment 20A. I do not think it can be dealt with by advice. Taking the example of Grenfell, it seems very harsh to say this, but bad cases make bad law. I really doubt that the example we have heard could be answered by the change in the Bill proposed by this amendment.

With Amendment 21A, I suppose the question is whether reasonably practicable encompasses proportionate. I think, in the context, it does. Conversely, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Gower, and I think he is right to question in Amendment 23A whether it is appropriate that a copy of the document dealing with procedures is provided to the SIA as soon as reasonably practicable after it is prepared. It would be helpful to have a specific time limit here to ensure that the documents are prepared quickly, in a timely manner. That may be something for the SIA to be able to indicate was required, but it would be right not to have an entirely open-ended arrangement that could mean that some people who should be preparing documents do not get on with them as quickly as they should.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak in support of my noble friend Lord Davies of Gower’s amendments in this group, specifically Amendments 21A and 23A, and I hope to do so very briefly. It strikes me that Amendment 21A is a crucial brake, as it were, on the power of the Executive. It introduces a test of reasonable proportionality to the creation by the Secretary of State of further procedures by regulation.

I know that there are some later amendments by the noble Lord, Lord Anderson of Ipswich, and others on the totality of the Henry VIII clauses in this clause and ensuing clauses. But, in the event that these specific provisions, namely subsections (4) and (5), remain in the Bill, Amendment 21A represents a crucial limit on the powers of the Government. In the age-old phrasing relating to proportionality, it is important not to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Insisting that “further procedures” meet an additional test of being reasonably proportionate imposes on the Secretary of State a duty to consider the question of proportionality in a measured and proper way.

Finally, Amendment 23A, as others have said, would provide an express and definitive timeframe for ensuring documentary compliance. The legislation would thus avoid uncertainty and vagueness by creating a specific time period. That strikes me as being in the interests of the person responsible for the enhanced duty premises or qualifying event and in the interests of the SIA. In short, everyone would know where they stand, and I suggest that that kind of awareness is to be commended. I look forward to hearing the Government’s clarification of all the points made.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, I listened carefully to the speeches which have been made. The noble Lord, Lord Cameron of Lochiel, talked about sledgehammers cracking nuts; I slightly wonder whether that is what the amendments in this group would have the effect of doing. It is clear that for the qualifying premises—let us separate out the enhanced duty ones for a moment—what is being talked about is taking reasonably practical measures, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, said, and that there should be appropriate public protection.

When I listened to the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, I thought that it sounded as if, as an event organiser, he is already exemplary because he has thought about these things. I am sure that he has briefed the volunteers and the people around him about this. I slightly wonder why people have got so worked up about what the consequences and implications of all of this are.

If people want to know why there is this question of whether you invacuate or evacuate—whether you lock the doors or whatever—I am very taken by the accounts I heard of the Borough Market incidents. There were decisions which had to be made instantly as to whether to shut and barricade the doors or bring people in from outside. That assessment is going to be made on the spot, in an instant, but it is much better if the event organisers or the premises organisers have spent a bit of time thinking about it in advance, as clearly the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, has done, briefing each other and considering the various “What ifs?”. There is no right or wrong answer in those cases; you have to make the best assessment, but you will always make a better one if you have thought about it in advance, worked out what the choices are and what drives them.

My other point is about Amendment 22 and the waiving of public protection procedures. This sounds like the sledgehammer to crack a nut, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Cameron. A bureaucratic process will be set up whereby an events organiser or a premises organiser will make an application for a waiver to a public body, no doubt filling in lots of forms. Frankly, would it not be quicker just to do what the Bill asks: to make appropriate, reasonable arrangements? That is surely what is there and, if they are appropriate and reasonable, then the organisers will not have problems as a result of this Bill.